Peter Briggs had written an unmade script for Freddy vs. Jason that was a hit with the studio, so he was hired to write this and he chose to ignore those two films above and just concentrate on the first four movies.

But oh yeah, this was a Dimension Film.

And you may have heard it before (Hellraiser: Inferno and Hellraiser: Hellseeker are other examples) that this wasn’t a Hellraiser movie.

That’s because the script that Biggs wrote would have been too expensive, so the studio picked up Neil Marshall Stevens’s spec script Deader and Bob Weinstein told Tim Day to rewrite that story into a Hellraiser sequel but you know, make it J-horror.

And to save even more money, it was filmed in Romania, where all 2000s horror came from, at the same time as Hellraiser: Hellworld.

Amy Klein (Kari Wuhrer) is a reporter sent on assignment to Bucharest. There, she’s to investigate the Deaders cult who engage in the ritual murder and reanimation of their members. She discovers the body of the girl who sent the tape as well as a Lament Configuration, which she opens in a dream and summons Pinhead.

It turns out that she’s been meant to come to the cult, as its leader — and Lament Configuration creator descendent — Winter LeMarchand can’t open the box himself. He has faith that he is destined to lead the Cenobites. He only needs someone who is so emotionally vulnerable and nihilistic that they will submit to dying and being brought back. That’s when he forces Amy to relive the abuse that her father put her through — as well as her killing him — before Winter puts her through the ritual.

Then Pinhead comes and hijinks ensue.

Man, this sounds so much better in words than it does in movie form.